How do you know that hiring a marketing consultant is the right move for your business? In my experience, a freelance consultant can be the perfect fit for you if you’ve recognised the following:

1. You need to do more marketing activity to progress your business but

2. You can’t commit to hiring a full-time marketing employee and,

3. You need to be flexible about the marketing tasks you’re outsourcing.

Hiring a consultant who is a specialist in their field feels like it should be expensive. Yes, it is true that a marketing consultant will have a higher hourly rate than an employee. However, when you do the costings, they come out way more cost-efficient than hiring a permanent member of staff.

Here are some of the benefits of hiring a marketing consultant:

1. Outsourcing saves you money

2. You get a higher level of expertise for your money

3. It’s a flexible commitment

4. You’ll spend less time on people management

Let’s go into each of these benefits in a bit more detail.

Outsourcing your marketing saves you money

When you add up the associated costs of employing a member of staff, there are clear savings to be had when hiring a freelance consultant.

Here’s what you save on when employing an external consultant over an employed member of staff:

• Taxes associated with PAYE and employer’s National Insurance contributions.

• Statutory holidays and sick pay.

• Pension contributions. In the UK, when an employee earns over £10,000 employers must make a contribution of 3% into their workplace pension.

• Office supplies (as well as a computer, telephone, stationery and printing etc think about desk space and even utility bills).

You get a marketing expert

I’ve set up as a Digital Marketing Consultant because I’ve noticed a real need for marketers with advanced skills in all things online marketing. I live and work in Nottingham and there are many great agencies in my city that offer digital marketing support but, these obviously come at an agency price. Agencies have overheads to pay on a scale way beyond mine as a freelancer - meaning I can be more competitive on price for my clients.

Agencies are great for larger businesses, including those further afield where travel is worth the project fee; my clients are generally smaller SMEs or consultants in other fields, local to me in Nottingham.

At the point where someone takes the leap to becoming self-employed, they have amassed the necessary skills to be great at what they do. Freelancers are experts in their particular field and if you feel more comfortable hiring somebody who has past experience of working with an organisation like yours, that person is likely out there.

I’ve been employed in marketing roles for over 11 years before deciding to go it alone as a marketing consultant. My clients are getting the benefit of all those years of experience when I come to work for them.

Freelancers afford flexible commitment

This is an obvious one but remember that when you are hiring a member of staff, unless they’re permanent, the shortest contract term they are likely to be on is for 12 months.* With a freelancer, you can hire someone for the short-term to test the waters or to simply undertake some project work which needs to be completed within a relatively short timeframe.

*In the UK there are zero hours contracts in operation but these don’t tend to be for professional roles such as marketing manager.

This isn’t to say that freelance marketers are disposable! If you find the right person, they can become an extended part of your team and the longer they work with you, the more they come to understand your business and become even more effective at what they do.

Just as when you hire a new member of staff, expect an induction-type period with a freelancer where they take the time to learn about your business and your marketing objectives. This initial investment in helping them to understand what you do will help them to do the best work for you and will reap rewards further down the line if they end up working with you regularly.

When your project is complete and the invoice paid, that’s where you can end your working relationship with a freelancer. There’s no need to go through the necessary HR processes in place for letting employees go. Most consultants will have a contract in place with you before they start working on your project and the terms of that will be agreed beforehand.

If times are slow and you business isn’t prospering financially, you can hold off on hiring a freelancer until you need them. A luxury that’s not extended to permanent employees. This is why hiring consultants is particularly useful for SMEs and even start-ups.

Spend less time on people management with a consultant

As a freelancer is not your employee, they don’t need the level of management applied to them that your employees receive. There are no professional development reviews or attendance at staff meetings. Freelance consultants are experienced in working solo and have the motivation to get the agreed work completed to a high standard by the deadline.

Yes, you will need to meet with your consultant to discuss how the work is progressing, but this is light-touch in comparison to the level of management and guidance invested in a full-time employee.

Conclusion - should you hire a freelance marketing consultant?

If you’ve been doing some marketing already and you want to do more but you can’t commit to taking on an employee - a marketing consultant could be the perfect solution.

You don’t necessarily need to have a clear idea of what the marketing tasks are that you need doing (although that does help) as many consultants are able to advise on where you should invest your budget and focus your efforts.

If you need help deciding on and documenting your marketing strategy, there will be a consultant for that. If you just need someone to come in and manage your social media, there will be a consultant for that.

The work that I do sits somewhere in between these two ends of the spectrum (the overall vision vs the day-to-day doing). I work with businesses who know what their goals are and have recognised where they need to invest effort to reach those goals.

If you take the leap and hire a consultant - you really have very little to lose!

If you want to find out more about how I might be able to support your marketing efforts, get in touch and we can have a chat.